Lee Taylor
Rocket Boat: Search Continues For Driver
GLENBROOK, Nev. — (AP) — Lee Taylor vanished into the frigid
waters of Lake Tahoe when his rocket-powered boat disintegrated while trying to
set a water speed record and rescue crews have all but given up hope that he
could have survived.
Searchers used floodlights and television cameras, working late
into the night, but failed to find any trace of the cockpit section of the boat
that was traveling well over 200 miles an hour when it caromed out of control.
The search, which lasted five hours, resumed at 9 a.m. today,
but the rescue workers held out little hope that Taylor could have survived.
Sheriff's Sgt. Doug Struthers said: "He is presumed dead. He has
not been officially declared dead."
Before darkness fell, crews recovered an unopened drag
parachute, Taylor's helmet and several sections of the boat, but found no sign
of the 45-year-old Bellflower, Calif., pilot.
"He never had a chance to say 'boo,'" said a crew member, Luke
Fratello.
Denver Dickerson, project director for the record attempt, said
it appeared the boat hit a "black line" of shifting currents that caught a
sponson at the rear of the boat. The boat "just blew apart," Dickerson said.
He said a black line creates a surface disturbance similar to
going over a bump, and the line was where Taylor started to shut off his engine.
The accident occurred after Taylor had made one of two required
runs through the 1-kilometer speed trap in an attempt to break the record of
317.6 miles an hour. Reports on his speed ranged from 270 to 350 m.p.h. before
he cut off his engines.
A crowd estimated at nearly 1,000, including Taylor's mother,
wife and daughter, greeted the pilot with cheers as he raced through the speed
trap. The shouts turned to screams when the boat flew apart and sank in 200 feet
of water about a half mile offshore.
Taylor tested the boat this summer on Walker Lake southeast of
Reno and reached unofficial speeds of 333 m p.h.
"It's euphoric" traveling at that speed, he had said. "It's sort
of like riding the tip of an arrow just shot from a bow."
Taylor had said he hoped to hit 350 m.p.h. in yesterday's
attempt to take the record from Australia's Ken Warby.
Warby broke Taylor's previous record in June, 1978, after Taylor
held the mark 11 years. Both records were set in jet boats. This was the first
attempt in a rocket-powered craft.
Taylor survived a jet-boat crash in 1964 on Lake Havasu in
Arizona.
The 40-foot U.S. Discovery II was powered by a
16,000-horsepower rocket designed for aircraft and missiles and fueled by 1,000
pounds of hydrogen peroxide. The boat was valued at $2.5 million.
(The October, 1979, crash of Miss Budweiser in Seattle
that injured Dean Chenoweth was an attempt to set a straightaway mile record for
unlimited hydroplanes, which are propeller-driven. The Budweiser was going an
estimated 215 m.p.h. when it crashed.)
(Reprinted from The Seattle Times, November 14, 1980)
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